The practice of displaying goods for sale within a rigid and highly decorative container has been increasingly employed, especially at outlet stores and discount supermarkets, as well as at various rental and sales locations for videotapes and books. These paper board containers allow the vendor to display merchandise without having to construct additional fixed shelving structures. These portable cardboard shelving structures are quickly assembled and are generally inexpensively manufactured so that they may be disposable.
Oftentimes, such display units are constructed from a single, dye-cut sheet of paper board and, through a variety of folding steps, the collapsible display unit is transformed into a structure containing at least one shelf for holding merchandise. One of the significant drawbacks of such structures is the inability to support a substantial amount of weight. This is due in part to the cantilevered structure of many of the foldable shelving units disclosed in the prior art. However, even where the shelves of prior displays extend between a pair of end supports, the shelves are typically formed from a single sheet of reinforced corrugated paper board which, though sufficient for display of lighter weight articles, are incapable of supporting substantial weights on the order of above 100 pounds.
These and other drawbacks of prior art foldable display assemblies are overcome by the invention of the preferred embodiments.